Sunday, March 22, 1998Last modified at 3:20 a.m. on Sunday, March 22, 1998

Keeping Noise Away

A LOT OF PEOPLE are talking about their "rights" today. It seems that more and more people want to prevent their rights from being trampled upon or their personal space from being invaded.

Noise pollution is a thing sometimes discussed by the appointed protectors of personal space. The argument is that noisy people unfairly cause others to listen to their racket.

Two New Jersey townships have now battled noise pollution to the point that musical ice cream trucks have been outlawed. Ice cream trucks can now use only bells to let kids know that they are in the neighborhood.

Jeffery Cabaniss, whose ice cream truck endlessly played "Turkey in the Straw" in Stafford Township, N.J., complains that the town council has taken away his identity. He estimates that his soft-serve ice cream truck will suffer a 50 percent decrease in sales because of the loss of his music.

We wonder just how disruptive Mr. Cabaniss' truck was to the local residents who complained about it. As he made his rounds, he would not have been in any neighborhood more than a few minutes at a time.

But we think he may have overstated his loss by likening it to his identity and estimating that his sales would be halved.

As people become increasingly vocal about their rights, are they correspondingly less likely to want to get along with others? Is a desire for personal space incompatible with tolerance? It's food for thought, non-frozen and not on a stick.